All Or Nothing
by Orokid
Summary: Two of our heroes are living together after the war, having lost their third member in the death toll. A few years has passed, and yes she still mourns...


_Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. None at all. And... it hurts... ((cries))_

_orokid: okay... just to be warned, I was in an interesting mood when I started to write this. It's most likely bad, so don't think much of it, okay?_

**_All Or Nothing _**

I didn't know what to think anymore. It was getting to be too much of a hassle to fight it, since I know that when she looks out the window, she's not just looking at the scenery- she's looking for someone. And it's not me. We've been living together for almost two years now, and the one she's been looking for hasn't come to take her from here.

I hate how she's just the sort to keep looking, despite the fact that everyone in the world knows that he can no longer find anyone where he went. He's gone from this world, and yet I'm still fighting with him- and I doubt that I'll ever stop too. It just isn't fair anymore, although I don't think that it was ever fair to begin with. He was someone I wanted to be, someone everyone wanted to be, and I still want to be him.

He has the eye, as well as the heart, of the woman I love, of the woman I want, and there just isn't any sort of way to get it into my own possession. As much as I want to hate him, hate her, I can't blame either of them. I just can't because, well… they're my best mates, and I just can't interfere- even if one isn't allowed from where he went to…

Some days though… I just wish that she'd forget and see me for who I am, and not see him when our eyes meet. It just… isn't fair.

_I know when he's been on your mind  
That distant look is in your eye   
I thought with time you'd realize  
It's over, over _

I can't help getting angry again as I finally pick up my plate, dabbing my napkin on my lips before sliding my chair back and cleaning up after myself. Her eyes never waver from the window, and it pains me to know that she'll forever be waiting for him- and he'd never come for her. I slide the plate into the kitchen sink, lightly scrubbing the leftover food from it as soon as I turn on the water, and my eyes watch her as she watches the window, waiting for him.

She's always waiting.

My hands slip when my concentration, as little as there was already, wavers, making me drop the plate. It shattered in the sink- a bad omen, said Trelawney said once- and I got to picking up the pieces as the young woman at the table continued to ignore both me and her food.

The least she could do was eat it, really... It'd be good to get something that would nourish her after so long of going without any real sort of foods. Coffee, a crumpet or so once in a while, and a bite of my world famous (well… family famous) cheese omelet. Besides, it'd be nice to see her weigh more than what a size four in those American jeans that she bought last summer (I do the laundry sometimes) could fit. Personally, if mum saw her now, I knew that she'd be force feeding the girl until she weighed what she had back in the beginning, when we came out from the battle without wounds or anything- just short one best mate.

The sad thing is… I want her to be happy, and I know that I'm not the one that can make her smile like he could.

_It's not the way I choose to live  
And something some where's got to give  
As sharing this relationship gets older, older _

I placed my cleaned and dried (as well as fixed) plate back into the cupboard, and resigned back to the seat I had vacated. If I didn't tell her to go to bed, and slept on the couch in the living room, I knew that she'd be sitting right there, in that seat, until he returned. But he wasn't going to return… It wasn't possible for him to, but she was refusing to believe it.

Sometimes… I want to think that he'll return to, but I hate the idea that he'd come back only to take her from my side. I want to make her mine, and I can wish that, if he ever returned, she'd finally see that I'm the one who she should be with- not him, not the boy who had it all, not an old memory that had left her for one reason or another. It should've always been me-

But it was him all along.

And I hate him for it.

I lied earlier, I suppose. Not only can I try to hate him, can I hope to hate him, I can, and it scares me somewhat to know that I hate my best mate over a mere girl. But… she's not just some mere girl- she's my best friend, she's the girl I've loved, even when I wouldn't admit to it. She's the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, the one I want to see in the mornings right when I wake up. She's the one I love, yet…

He's the only one she sees, and he's the only one she will ever see.

And I hate him.

_You know I'd fight for you _

_But how I can fight someone who isn't even there  
I've had the rest of you now I want the best of you  
I don't care if that's not fair _

I can't stop my hand from reaching out to her and touching her arm, and her chocolaty orbs turn to greet my skies. It hurts to see the knowledge that I hate admitting when I wake up, when I open my eyes to greet the day. It hurts to see her hurting, and I hate him even more as the days pass. He's the reason that she's in pain, and I can't do a thing to solve that little problem- because he's the only one she thinks of, and I know that she sees him where I'm sitting and not me. I know that she's seeing someone who can never return to her side, and it's painful, right here in my chest.

"You okay?" I see her eyes return to their usual dim lighting at my words. It's always that way when she figures that she's just hallucinating, that she's not really seeing him, that he's not really across from her. Does she know that, as much as his disappearance (his death, really) had hurt her, her nearly dead eyes hurt me even more? I doubt it, and I don't think she realizes the pain I go through as I watch her.

But it hurts, and it's all because I don't want to watch her look for him any longer. I want to watch her watch me, and laugh when I try to make her laugh. I want to see her smiles. I want to see her, the girl I loved, the girl who berated me for not doing my homework on time (or at all).

_Cause I want it all  
Or nothing at all  
There's no where left to fall   
When you reach the bottom it's now or never _

I see her as she cracks a small mournful smile, and I'm not sure at all if that's what she really wanted me to see. She thinks that she's fooling me, and I play along because I want to make sure she's happy. Why not? If I could see her real smile again… I'd die a happy man…

I'd die like he did, with a smile on his face (although I don't really know if he did, since the ministry had gotten to him before we had), with the love of the girl I wanted gone with him.

She misses that smile his… and I miss her's…

And it seems as though she and I aren't getting any closer, only farther from one another. She's longing for him… I'm longing for her… and no one but the dead is happy. Terrific, isn't it? Pining for things we can't ever have. What depresses me the most is that all she and I would ever be are friends- and it's becoming clearer day by day that this friendship may not even last long in our current situation.

_Is it all  
Or are we just friends  
Is this how it ends  
With a simple telephone call  
You leave me here with nothing at all _

Once more, without saying a word to me, she turns back to the window and watches. Why did I even except an answer? I don't know, but I shouldn't have thought so, since this was what I usually get. I'm too hopeful, and it's only killing me internally as time passes by on it's merry way.

The again, so is she. She's hopeful that he'll return from his grave, that he's not really dead and that the ministry is merely pretending with us. She's hopeful that he's hiding underground, waiting for the right time to come out of hiding and return to her, to come back and take her into his arms and tell her the words he never got to say.

We're hopeful for things that'll never happen.

Some days, I can hear her whisper to herself, murmuring about this and that- but it's always about him. She'd whisper his name as she'd watch the window, she'd chuckle softly as she thinks about those times he'd grin sheepishly at her after making a suggestive comment. I remember them as well, since I'd make a similar comment a few moments later and she'd walk off in a huff, saying that she didn't have to listen to 'such words' coming out from my 'filthy mouth'.

And, back then, I still had hope for a future together with her. Now, it's a dim light in the hallway, showing me the way to Death, to the underworld- to see the man who's taken everything from me.

I never told her that she does this, and, like everything else that she's done in the past couple of years, I pretend like she never said a thing. For all these years, I doubt she realizes that she does it. But I'm still here, pretending, while she's out there in her own little world, getting the love that I for sure cannot give her, whether I want to or not.

_There are times it seems to me  
I'm sharing you with memories  
I feel it in my heart  
But I don't show it, show it _

Then, finally, she looks at me and her eyes widen considerably. I know why too, because she just realized that I was here the entire time. We've been through this many times, and it has come to the same conclusion each and every time- she'd go back to her own little world and I would return to watch her look for him. It hasn't changed for this long, and I don't think it will today either. Nothing's different about today…

But I want something to be different than yesterday, or the day before that, or even the day before that. I want her to stop looking out that window and look at me- not realize that I've been sitting right there for the whole while, waiting for an answer to a question she doesn't know I've asked.

Once more, like yesterday and the day before that, she smiles softly at me- a little embarrassed that she had been caught in her daydreaming trance, I believe- and looks back out the window.

With a sigh, I picked myself up from the chair- as well as from the floor, where my heart and soul lay beaten and broken beyond repair- and shove it lightly back in. Misery didn't feel this bad before, I remember lightly as I lean against the chair for a moment longer than usual. Back then, misery was only worrying about my family and whether I'd pass my NEWT tests or not, and whether I'd be dead in the morning because our dear friend Voldemort (I still flinch somewhat at the name, even when he's dead and one from this world to the next) decided to attack in the middle of the night.

Now, my misery only held my heartache and worry for her well being, and it hurts to watch her deteriorate like she is.

_And then there's times you look at me  
As though I'm all that you can see  
Those times I don't believe it's right  
I know, know it _

Back when she had begun this little hobby of hers (since all I can call it is hobby without wanting to cry out in frustration), I remember when she had made me a promise to stay healthy, and to eat whenever there was food in front of her. She had laughed, although softly, when I had made her promise to eat whatever was in front of her. I had been serious then, and I still am, after these few years. She's causing more harm to her own body than our friend had done to her heart, and she's just allowing it to happen.

Besides, it's not as if I can do anything. How can you make a space cadet like her eat when all her mind is on isn't food? How can you make someone eat when their hunger is for a companion that wouldn't ever come for them?

Fact is, you can't, and I just stopped trying. It had been hard to that whole first month, when she had begun to have an all day stare-a-thon with the front yard, but I had forced myself to stop. Now, what I do, is lay it in front of her and hope for the best. If she eats it, then I'd be happy that she's at least attempting to re-nourish herself. If she doesn't, well…

Like I said, you can't do anything about it if they won't let you.

_Don't me make me promises  
Baby you never did know how to keep them well   
I've had the rest of you  
Now I want the best of you  
It's time for show and tell _

Soon, I notice as night falls, and she doesn't notice it at all. Why should she? In her world, it's all rays of sunshine and furry thing jumping happily around the couple I know couldn't ever exist in this world. In her world, I exist as the half goat sort of man, throwing out flower petals all around them as they walk hand in hand in a field of pink and white flowers. In her world, he's alive and all is well.

But, still, in this world, none of it is that way at all. In fact, it's the polar opposite, and I know she hates that it's like this. That's why she traps herself in her mind, thinking about a world that she wants to live in- not the world that exists. There are too many faults her, and the biggest fault is, of course, the fact that he isn't here, and the fact that I am. Secretly, I know she hates that my survival, as well as her own, had cost him his life.

And I just wish that I could do something. I wish that I could make her see that, despite the fact that the man she loved was gone, I was here to comfort and console. I was here for her, through rain or shine- like that muggle postman or something of the sort. I was here to take his place.

If only she'd let me.

_Cause I want it all  
Or nothing at all  
There's no where left to fall   
When you reach the bottom it's now or never _

"Hermione?" Her eyes focus on me, and she knows it's me only because she doesn't have those wide pupils like she does when her eyes look at him, and not at me. My hand is resting on her shoulder, and I know that she's tempted to look back at the porch from that look in her eyes- but both of us know that he's not going to be there. It's been years, and even he couldn't stay away from us that long. Even if I hate him for leaving her so broken, I know that he just isn't the type to leave us alone like this. He isn't the type to stay undercover from his friends.

She just doesn't want to admit to herself that he's gone, and I don't blame her. Losing someone you love this much hurts to know that they're gone…

"Yes?" Her voice is so weak, and it pains me to hear it. Why? Because it sounds so weak and shattered, like a mirror that had been the victim to a high powered blast. It's like she hasn't used her true voice in these couple of years, but I know she has. It has just sounded this way since she forgot how to live in my world- in reality.

I smile softly, peaking her cheek softly- like a friend should, so don't think that I'm trying to move in on her- before attempting to speak. "Time for bed, alright?"

She smiles back almost as weakly as her voice sounded, and I can feel my heart break in it's ribcage. My best friend, the woman I love, is in pain, and… I can't do anything. It's hurt much more than any wound had ever felt, although I doubt anyone could ever understand just what I'm talking about…

With a nod, her smile a little wider (my heart flutters with happiness- is she getting over him?) than it was just a mere moment ago. For some strange yet unknown reason, I can feel my insides drop to the bottom of my stomach, and I can't help but feel the fear that bubbles within. Why was I so worried? It was just like every other night, and she'd wake up in the morning- early as usual- and sit in her seat at the table and look for him.

Right?

"Alright, Ronald." I smile meekly at the usage of my entire first name, and I know that she is only using it to tease me. But… wait- tease me? She hasn't done that for years, and why did she begin to all of a sudden? Maybe… Maybe she… "See you."

Maybe she was finally healing that open wound within her heart.

_Is it all  
Or are we just friends  
Is this how it ends  
With a simple telephone call  
You leave me here with nothing at all _

Slowly, she gets up from her chair and stumbles ever so slightly. I notice her grab onto the table so to steady herself, hopefully before I notice, but- like always- I ignore it and grin at her. "Early to bed, early to rise- right, Hermione?" It was a saying I remember that she used to tell us, back before the final battle- back before he never came back to us after facing You-Know-Who off at the residence of Godric's Hallow.

"Right." She smiled back at me, although the size of that smile never got any bigger than it had only moments before. I wasn't going to ask why she was smiling like that, since I thought that she'd say that she felt like tomorrow would be her lucky day. It'd only pierce my heart tomorrow when I pull her back to bed tomorrow as she cried her eyes out, finding that he hadn't come after all. It'd be just like those other days, before today, before tonight.

I couldn't take another day of that sort of pain. It hurt me to watch her hurt like that. I only hope that her pain can end, and end soon.

_Cause you and I  
Could lose it all if you've got no more room  
No room inside for me in your life _

She, alone, drags herself up that flight of stairs, and I can't help but watch proudly as she goes. She's trying her hardest to be on her own- much like she had when we had first met all those years ago, before she had decided that he was to be her one and only. Back then, we had held so much innocence within our tiny bodies, and now… now it just seems like that innocence had been sucked from our bodies and given to those who are to be born. But, still, those moments we have in our memories will always be fond, whether or not I want them to be.

It was a moment we didn't have to live in fear for our lives, just because we conversed with the great boy who had been marked for death in the beginning. That moment, when our eyes had met on that train to school for the very first time… it will always be cherished in my mind.

As I turn away, I hear her call for me, and my heart quickens for no reason at all. Then again, it does that a lot of the time, since those thoughts that she'd recover for the pain of losing him and see that I'm the one she really needs never really let go of me. "Ronald?"

I turn back, my eyes awaiting her every word. To me, it's like a goddess is speaking to a mere mortal, telling them the meaning of life and the significance of it. "Yes?"

"Goodbye."

I admit that it's a little strange to hear her say 'goodbye' when our usual nightly departure concerns the word 'goodnight', but I assume that it's just a new way that she has taken to saying it. Why not? After these couple of years of her mourning for the boy no one could save, you tend to get used to hearing strange things come from her lips. It's like nothing new, I guess, and my hopes for her revival seems to lessen a little.

Instead of correcting her, I smile and return her words. "Goodbye, Hermione. Happy dreams." She didn't shake her head yes or no to the thought of having happy dreams, although I do know that she hasn't had a good dream in a very long time, and her nightmares deal with him and only him.

Why couldn't she have seen me? Why couldn't her heart start pumping at the sound of my name, or my voice even? Why?

She turns away and goes up the stairs without so much of a word back to me, and I feel a sense of foreboding gnaw at my insides. Like always, I ignore that as well, and it's interesting how well I've gotten at the idea and action of ignoring something like this. I turn to the couch, my bed since I could remember, and settle in without so much of a thought- only worry plaguing me.

_Cause I want it all  
Or nothing at all  
There's no where left to fall   
It's now or never _

I don't know how long it took for an hour to pass by, but it passes by with silence. I haven't been able to sleep, all because of my worries over my best mate- but it's a normal thing. I usually lay awake, like I am currently doing, until I hear her crying subside from upstairs and silence overtakes the residence. But something's different than normal, and it's hard to ignore this.

I haven't heard a peep from her.

There hasn't been one sound of tears. There hasn't been one sob coming from upstairs, making me want to go up and take her into my arms and soothe her. No sounds at all has haunted this household, and the silence just seems so overbearing.

It's just not right, and I can't place as to why it feels this way, in the middle of the night while the moon is shining through the curtains. I should be happy that she has gone to bed without crying for once out of all this time, but… I just can't get myself to be, and I know that something seems wrong within this house.

I slip out from under my blanket and walk up those stairs, gnawing on my bottom lip in fear.

_Is it all  
Or nothing at all  
There's no where left to fall  
When you reach the bottom it's now or never _

I have to say it seems as if those stairs were probably the longest climb I've ever had to make- even including my walk to Divination, back at school. My heart is pounding in my ears, and I feel myself shake in my muggle tee shirt and plaid boxers (gifts from both of my friends in the past years). It's getting harder and harder for me to breathe, and I can feel my hand reach out for the doorknob that's getting closer and closer to my body, due to every step that I'm taking.

I can barely feel the cold steel of the knob touch my skin as my hand moves over it.

Why isn't my wrist turning? It seems as though the lock is jammed, with either magic or some… uh… magic, I suppose. No way to start thinking about things like this when my mind is panicking like it is, when I'm losing my faith in my ability to breathe. I have to act, but my arm seems to stay in place. I'm cursing myself for my inability to do anything, and it hurts me inside that I'm like this.

I'm a ruddy idiot, and there's no way to convince me otherwise. All I'm doing is overthinking, and thinking that the worst might've happened. I have to think positive, think that she's just asleep and not doing something that I don't want to walk in on.

Now turn the bloody doorknob!

_Is it all  
Or are we just friends  
Is this how it ends  
With a simple telephone call  
You leave me here with nothing at all _

Breathing in deeply, I do my best to face my fears, to face the knowledge of the truth or not. I'm worried more than I have been for these past two years, and that's only because I've gotten it into my mind a certain pattern that she had begun those years ago, when we walked off the battlefield without him. Never once had she ever moved from that course, and yet... today, she had stopped frowning, stopped crying, stopped mourning, and had actually smiled at me for the first time.

But that smile was what scared me. The more I thought of it, the more I got to shaking. The more the day flashed before my eyes, the more worried. I don't want to think it, but it's in my mind and I can't force it out.

Did she..?

No, she couldn't have. It just wasn't possible that my best friend, that the woman I secretly loved, would do such a thing. She just didn't seem the sort to do it, and... and...

Something behind the door seemed to fall, a loud thump alerting my senses as fear took over. Panic quickened my heart even further, and I felt as though I would have a heart attack before my body ever let me open the door. Everything imaginable went through my mind- from the moment she smiled at me to the part where she spoke the word "goodbye".

I didn't want her to be, so... it just couldn't happen, right? I just... I can't lose her...

_Or nothing at all  
There's no where left to fall  
When you reach the bottom it's now or never _

I don't know how I managed the strength to open the door five minutes after my palm had touched the steel handle, but now I wish I never did. My worst fears were coming true, and I just didn't like how this was happening. Nothing was going how I imagined, let alone hoped, and the tears springing up from my eyes didn't help me at all.

Those tears weren't going to give her back to me, whether I wanted them to or not.

My legs had taken over for me, running to her side before I could stop myself from doing so. Her hand still grasped onto her wand, and it didn't take a genious to figure out just which spell had been used. The body that I secretly adored still had a green glow to it, and everything today just made sense-

Especially the word "goodbye" before I had sent her into her room to sleep.

Tears whelled in my eyes, and it hurt to hold her in my arms while she laid dead in them. I couldn't do anything to bring her back to me, for, today, she had made the choice to go with the man she truly loved. She went to a place where I couldn't reach her, where my voice means nothing-

- where _he _is.

And where I'm not.

It just isn't fair.

And I just began to cry.

_Is it all  
Or are we just friends  
Is this how it ends  
With a simple telephone call  
You leave me here with nothing at all, all_

Another glow took over for the green, and, once more, I took to panicking for her. It was strange for me to worry for her right now, since she is, after all, not in this plane of existence, but I just can't help myself. I love her, yet... I wasn't enough for her. My love hadn't been enough to convince her to stay in this world, where someone would care. Sobbing harder, my arms tightened around her limp body and held, not wanting to ever let go while I mourn for the one I can't live without.

Still, the light only grows, near to blinding. As much as I want to fight it off, it just won't go away, and it won't leave me be to mourn for my loss. It won't go until I let go of her, and it hurts me to understand why.

He's coming for her.

Slowly, a light comes into the room, as far from us as possible yet still be in the room, it seemed. I didn't need to look, because I know that I would get up from my place and start to yell once more, like I do in my head when I'm looking for someone to blame for my beloved's misfortunes.

The tears are like fire on my face, and it boils within my body, within my bloodstream. It hurts so much, from the inside and out.

The light that had grown on the limp and inactive form of my best friend seems to act instead, and I hate having to be here at this time. It was their reunion. It was a lover's reunion, and I was no part of it at all. Slowly, my arms lessened their hold upon her waist, my tears falling as freely as a horse in the wild, and I drop her from my arms as softly as possible.

I don't even watch their ghostly figures hold on to one another as I walk out the door. I don't even stop to watch them share their first passionate kiss as a couple. My eyes are low and my heart feels like it's dying.

I have to call the ministry about this.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_orokid: okay... this and my untitled story are my most depressing stories that I've ever written. It isn't the best thing, but, for some reason, I've been having this thing where I have to write in first person or it sounds bad to me. Sadly though, when I reread it, it sounds even worse. ((Cries)) I suck..._


End file.
